A Glimpse into my Morning

Dear Diary,

Photo by John Ellis

Waste no opportunities.
  This is called following the light
Tao

The last few days of September have been so cold and there have even been some overnight frosts. I was hoping to delay lighting the woodburner until October but alas - no such luck.  Thankfully we had its chimney swept last week.  Now I must accept that wearing several layers of clothes will be the norm with a fleece on top for good measure.  Such is my life up in the hills!  We are trying to avoid putting any radiators on yet as it is so expensive and I never want to see such a high leccy bill again as the one we had last winter - and we are not the only ones. 

After a tasty breakfast of two boiled eggs and Marmite soldiers made with M’s gorgeous wholemeal bread I head out on my morning walk.  It is a still and quiet morning; gone are the roars of the Sunday bikers who always blight my weekends especially if there is a fatality or serious accident as there so often is in this dear country. There was an accident on Saturday.  Why do they, or more to the point why are they allowed to go so fast?

It is comfortably cool now after a morning which began with a hint of a frost and there is just the softest, lightest touch of rain when I take the dogs for their morning walk in the field.  Finn is sometimes reluctant to cross the wooden bridge now; he has grown a little anxious in his old age and being arthritic of leg he may well be fearful of slipping and falling into the river, who can blame him for being dog-sensible?  I sometimes take him the long way round on the lead but today I walk across the bridge with  him and he seems happy to do so, perhaps he feels safer with me on the end of his lead.  The sheep are as placid as ever and do not stir when they see us approaching, they are not frightened of the dogs and the dogs ignore them thoroughly as they have been very well-trained.  All sheep are standing except one who lies still just watching - there is always an individualist, thank God - while the rest just casually survey our movements from a distance and only edge slowly out of our way if we come too far into the section of the field where they are grazing. 

There are blessings to note, as ever.  The sound of birdsong for one and  the accompanying music  of the river running.  The sight of the river is beautiful too, it has a black sheen like treacle as it forms mini-waterfalls over the stones which flow downstream and give birth to baby rivulets.   Kitty always goes down the bank to drink from the river and sometimes goes in for a paddle, not today though.
 
M is indoors painting the study walls pretty pink, I am finding the white walls cold and draining and for once the paint does not smell which is a blessing.  Molly the cat is unimpressed though, the study is her ‘bedroom’ and being a proper nocturnal cat it is where she spends a good part of the day.  The cottage interior seems dark lately but I must get used to this as the days shorten and winter draws ever nearer.  There are still plenty of flowers in the garden to brighten it though - cosmos, roses, sedum, rudbeckia and other daisy type flowers. The buddleiae are in flower, better late than never.  Butterflies are still plentiful  too as are the wasps and the bees.

I am soon going to plant more bulbs and  woodland plants mainly beneath my Sitka Spruce pine trees now that M has tidied up their low-hanging branches and I am keen to plant lots of cyclamen, more bluebells, daffodils etc.   Already a mystery yellow flower has appeared and I have yet to name it.

A dear friend recently likened autumn to a terminal illness - death being winter I suppose and it is a fact that seasonal depression is such a serious sadness, indeed an illness for so many folk.  But I feel that autumn breaks us in to Winter everso gently and there are so many blessings of the season in its wake - along with the beauty of the autumn colours there is less weeding and grass cutting!  There used to be better TV programmes to look forward to but I have yet to discover them.

I am still getting over a cold, I can’t stop coughing and spluttering so am looking forward to cooching up with The Girl who Played with Fire, that one should definitely warm me up!  I have just finished The Marriage Bed by Regina McBride because of the Great Blasket Island connection that was an enjoyable read.  Our book group is reading People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks for October - I really loved her book March so am looking forward to that one.  Also on the go is The Glass Room by Simon Mawer which is another great read - I had better get on with it…..

So many books, too  little time.

Before I go here are just a few of my


Thoughts on Autumn


I have prayed for an Indian summer and I swear I caught just the occasional glimpse of her as she slowly crept across the mountain.  Autumn still works hard at wooing but her temper flares, she can be kind but she can be wild and wanton, throwing in all directions the placement that was summer.

But there is such consolation in her colours.  As they fall, as her leaves blow across the sun-brightened sky
their scents are all around, both underfoot and in the air carried on drifts of bonfire smoke or in a shower of rain. She can break us in gently for the harshness that will undoubtedly come, the coldness which we shall hopefully endure but her stay is all too brief, like Life She will not linger long.  So take all her glory into your soul.

Autumn is dressed in a richness of red, gold and ochre.  Loath to leave now, the leaves hang heavy but cling on as if life is so dear which it surely is.  I will not hang or huddle, instead I wrap her around me for all too soon she will be gone as Winter creeps in even more stealthily to undermine her foundations.

Autumn is a promise asking little in return.  As we part I look forward for Spring waits and is not too far behind, on Winter’s tail. But we should look for delight in the dark times too.  Sleep awhile, a little more, just like the squirrel.  There will be days when the sun can still be flirtatious in her moods.
Comforting us too, she lifts our spirits and we prepare again for rebirth amongst the season’s fadings.


Cait O’Connor

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

Images and a few words

Dear Diary,

It has been too long since my last post, many apologies.

Of course I have excuses but won't list them, far too boring.  Just call them Life which we all understand because we all suffer from its many humdrum lamentations.

I picked up a copy of Country Life the other day in the library and was delighted to find a piece on Alan Cotton, one of my favourite artists (see above and my header pic).  I saw that he has an exhibition at Messum's,  8. Cork Street, West London from 15th September to 2nd October.  I also learned that he is a knife-painter (no he doesn't paint knives but he paints with knives) and that his paintings are influenced not only by my beloved west of Ireland but also by many other (warmer) climes.  There is a new book out by Jenny Pery, Alan Cotton: Giving Life a Shape.

Before I go,

I will leave you with a little poem.

Ange passe



I found them the day after the autumn solstice
in my favourite spot beneath the willow.
beside the stream
where birds and hedgehogs feed,
otters play and the fox and badger roam at night.
A place that is sacred and silent
on early morning strolls or night-time meditations.
Beneath my feet
lay a carpet of white feathers
(I felt the usual rush of love);
wondered had there been a party
on that warm September night?
I stood quite still and stared in wonder at the sight.
Was this a blessing of sweet angels at my feet,
gathered for the celebration of the season?
I still felt their presence and sensed there had been
much merriment, for joy hung in the air
and crowds of goodbye kisses were still blowing in the breeze.


Cait O'Connor

Heart-Lifters

Dear Diary,

Roald Dahl writing in his shed

I haven’t posted any blessings for ages but here are a few heart-lifters, reasons to be cheerful this week.

There is a new biography out of my favourite children’s author, it is called Storyteller The Life of Roald Dahl by Donald Shurrock  and it’s being read on BBC Radio 4 each morning which is a treat for me as I am not working this week.  One of the wonderful things Dahl wanted to do was to instil in children not just the love of his books but also the habit of reading as well . Well he certainly succeeded, his books remain as popular as ever and children do seem to get into the habit of reading once they have eagerly devoured all his titles. 

I am reading another good book, it’s The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, it was recommended to me by my daughter and is also the Purplecoo book club choice for autumn.   I also have Kate Atkinson’s new one Started Early Took my Dog and the wonderful Fay Weldon’s Kehua  and Patrick Gale’s The Whole Day Through to look forward to.  Much reading ahead! 

I’ve bought a selection of bulbs for the garden,  two lots of tulips in the shades of pale pink and deep burgundy, giant purple alliums and smaller varieties of allium in different colours,  I’ve also bought crocuses and snakes head fritillaries, irises and a few species of narcissi.  I was also tempted by some bluey-purple heathers and another shrub. a dark misty blue Caryopteris.  Continuing the blue theme I would like to get some more bluebell bulbs soon.   There is something comforting about planting bulbs in the autumn, it sort of brings spring nearer into view, something to imagine and look forward to; the excitement of seeing those first bulbs coming into flower.  I have a fair number of snowdrops but may buy a few more, they are the very first signs of spring, they cheer so just when we need uplifting from the depths of winter.

I visited the local garden centre this week very early in the morning on my way home from an early appointment in Hay.  It is an excellent place, somewhere I love going to and I was (almost) the only customer -  it was quite magical wandering among the just- freshly-watered plants so early in the day, I always feel better just for being amongst plants and I was starting to feel very happy and relaxed.  I was suddenly heartened to hear a bird singing its heart out, just for the joy of singing, as they do…. and I came across a little robin perched above me amongst the displays, he was not afraid of me at all and carried on singing away.  Isn’t it funny how little things like that can lift one’s heart and stay in the memory?

I have been working on a family search for a friend and have been quite successful so far and quite by chance found (in Ireland) a bit of a link between us, that was a big surprise. This is the second time this sort of thing has happened to me and it makes me wonder if there is something bigger than us at work in the universe, (well of course there is isn’t there?).

What else has lifted my heart?  The weather has been kind, warm and sunny with only the odd shower.  Family members have been visiting from Norfolk and it is always a pleasure to be in their company.

I have been brushing up my French in anticipation of a visit to Brittany at some stage on the genealogy trail.  I must put a plug in for the language audiotapes of Michel Thomas; this man is a genius at making learning a language a real doddle.  He teaches other languages as well.  A borrower recommended him to me, a friend had recommended him to her and now I pass it on to you.  Word of mouth (or in this case blog) is the best way to spread good things.

There is so much that is going bad in this country at the moment, so much incompetence surrounds us that I have turned into a proper Grumpy Old Woman so it is even more important to seek out the good.

Thank God for music, M is playing some great stuff (very loudly!) downstairs as I write this.  Luckily we have understanding neighbours who love music as much as we do.

Thank God for poetry,  I have Philip Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings by my bedside.  I will leave you with one.

Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin


And here’s another of Larkin’s  that I love.


Dublinesque


Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race-guides and rosaries,
A funeral passes.

The hearse is ahead,
But after there follows
A troop of streetwalkers
In wide flowered hats,
Leg-of-mutton sleeves,
And ankle-length dresses.

There is an air of great friendliness,
As if they were honouring
One they were fond of;
Some caper a few steps,
Skirts held skilfully
(Someone claps time),

And of great sadness also.
As they wend away
A voice is heard singing
Of Kitty, or Katy,
As if the name meant once
All love, all beauty.

Philip Larkin


Bye for now,
Happy Days,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

A Fable For Our Times

The Ant Story : Working Life

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A friend emailed this to me yesterday, I think it should be set in stone.

Migration

Just a poem today.

Migration/Safe Home

I am often kneeling, not exactly praying
but usually dreamily weeding,
revelling in the sometimes rare delights
of another British summer
but I always 'sense' you are coming;
just minutes before you arrive
I get one of my 'flashes', it is always a thrill.
Then you swoop in succession, one by one,
over the river, into the garden
making straight for the cottage eaves.

Late in August someone said you'd gone,
they saw you all lined up, prepared to fly.

Please don’t let it be so.
I didn’t see you. Could they have been wrong?
It is too soon.

Did you leave while I was sleeping,
away from home or simply unaware?
Were you lured away like I sometimes am,
by the call of a moon?
(Do you also have affinity with stars
or was a new love dawning?)
Was it second sight, by the signs of a storm
by the fall of a leaf, or a magnetic pull
from our own Mother Earth?
Was it by whispered warning, fear of flood
or tempest, hurricane or some such tortuous weather?
Whatever it was my heart and head are hurting
as I am left alone now and never got the chance to say
‘Safe Home.‘.

I lie, bereft now, looking out on vacant nests
containing only ghost-like memories of love and sound
under quietitude and lonely, empty eaves.
You and your new broods have fled together,
heading back to somewhere vast and unbeknown to me,
to a place that must be warmer, wider and more welcoming.
Off, in high tumultuous clouds across the wildest oceans
on such precious, fragile, tiny wings you fly.
Far, far away into the hinterland.


Cait O'Connor

 Safe Home

Connemara Blues

Dear Diary,

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats

I’ve changed my header picture today, I hope you like it?  It’s where I would like to be today.….in a Connemara early morning amongst all its blueness, walking with Kitty my collie by the waterside.  I remember the first time I visited Connemara on a camping holiday as a teenager and falling in love with its complete ‘unspoiltness‘, with the ponies, the coastline, the wildness and its green marble.  I remember camping there again by the sea in my twenties and bathing in the sea -  hidden amongst the rocks we found a sheltered pool, the soap wouldn’t lather but we managed to get clean.  A precious memory. Those were the days when you could strike camp almost anywhere, we travelled all round Ireland and hardly ever went to proper sites.  It rained a lot of course and I remember moving the tent round as the wind changed direction so many times. 

I love the blues in Alan Cotton’s painting, blue is such a healing colour and I have an affinity with this shade., it is after all the same blue that is found in many a colleen’s eyes.   This blue in Irish eyes has a strong gene connected to it and it has been passed down to my daughter and to all her daughters as well; people have commented on it.

It is a quiet morning here, very still and gentle with not a breath of wind -  there is a steady rain falling but it is warm one and I have just been out to feed the birds so they are happy.   My plants are enjoying the recent rainfall and have put on quite a spurt in growth which is good.

A borrower has seen a hummingbird hawkmoth locally, it has been visiting her buddleia shrub so that is exciting; we managed to identify it from a book in the library.  I’ve never seen or heard one myself. .. yet.

Talking of moths, I am not sure if I have ever mentioned The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams.  I can highly recommend this novel, give it a try, you don’t have to have an interest in the moth species, I promise.

And talking of books I have to quickly read the memoir, The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison for our Purplecoo book group.  I have avoided it because I am not in the mood for its subject matter but I must show willing and give an opinion.

A poetry book beckons too as Jo Shapcott has a new volume of poetry out called Mutability (great title).
Here is a taste of it.

Procedure

This tea, this cup of tea, made of leaves,
made of the leaves of herbs and absolute
almond blossom, this tea, is the interpreter
of almond, liquid touchstone which lets us
scent its true taste at last and with a bump
in my case, takes me back to the yellow time
of trouble with blood tests, and cellular
madness, and my presence required
on the slab for surgery, and all that mess
I don't want to comb through here because
it seems, honestly, a trifle now that steam
and scent and strength and steep and infusion
say thank you thank you thank you for the then, and now
Jo Shapcott


I am so enjoying Vexed a  black comedy on TV, on BBC2 on Sunday nights - at last I have found a comedy that actually makes me laugh and smile all the way through, I suspect I may be in a minority here, it is quite dark, very un-politically correct but so very funny.  Some say the acting is bad and the humour cruel but I don’t think they ‘get it’ and personally I think the acting is excellent.  I have yet to read a good review of it but that worries me not a bit, it is my kind of humour.

But I shall end as I began with Connemara and a poem by dear old WBY.

The Fisherman

Although I can see him still—
The freckled man who goes
To a gray place on a hill
In gray Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies—
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.   
All day I'd looked in the face   
What I had hoped it would be   
To write for my own race   
And the reality:   
The living men that I hate,   
The dead man that I loved,   
The craven man in his seat,  
The insolent unreproved—
And no knave brought to book   
Who has won a drunken cheer—
The witty man and his joke  
Aimed at the commonest ear,   
The clever man who cries  
The catch cries of the clown, 
The beating down of the wise  
And great Art beaten down.
Maybe a twelve-month since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face
And gray Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark with froth,
And the down turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream—
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;  
And cried,
“Before I am old  
I shall have written him one   
Poem maybe as cold   
And passionate as the dawn.”
William Butler Yeats

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

Ramblings

Dear Diary,

If I am walking with two men each of them will serve as my teacher.

I will pick out the good points of the one

and imitate them

and the bad points of the other

and correct them in myself.

Confucius (c551-478 BC)

I have to post a blog but today’s will be a mish-mash.  Just ramblings, a poem I like, a song, a picture, a quotation....

It’s Wednesday,  a no-work day and today it’s also an unexpectedly free-from-any plans-or-commitments- day, I love those kind of days best but I can’t  make up my mind what to do and the weather can’t either - whether to behave like it is still summer -  or push on with the beginnings of autumn.  The ‘A’ word is on everyone’s lips and in everyone’s writings at the moment, there is definitely something autumnal in the air.  I am a great lover of autumn but even I don’t want her to appear in August for God‘s sake.  I adore Indian summers and we had a great one last year - September and October were lovely.  Today we have had a heavy shower mid-morning and now the sun keeps peeping out and then disappearing again.  But they do say that rain is liquid sunshine don’t they?   I don’t know whether to potter in the garden or stay in and chase a few dead folk on the Ancestry site, something I love to do.

On Monday it was decidedly chilly when I woke up and so I dressed  accordingly, resigning myself to the fact that summer had passed.  We had things to do in Carmarthen and while we were there the temperature reached 27 degrees (!) but  when we arrived back at home it was very much cooler.  It is strange how the temperatures are varying so much at the moment, even within this little country.

I have the DVD of Dragon Tattoo to watch tonight so am looking forward to that.  Also have  the DVD of The Reader with Kate Winslet, somehow I missed seeing that film but a friend has recommended it.

I am now reading Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan, it was one of the TV Book Club choices on Channel 4, I’m finding it a light but enjoyable read that obviously has resonance for me and my family.  I love the short chapters which are just right when I’m feeling tired and not up to long spells of concentration.

Waiting on my bedside table are In the Kitchen by Monica Ali, a recommendation from a borrower and The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore.  Before I start one of those I have to get back to Rose Tremain’s Trespass which I have started  (it’s very good)  (I always have more than one book on the go).

So I may just curl up after lunch with a book, I am feeling kind of lazy today.  I always feel guilty reading in the daytime, I see it as a night-time things, how weird I am.  Talking of weird  M has hoovered downstairs this morning for some reason - I felt his forehead, no signs of a fever. I should have caught it on camera for you.

I promised a poem, here is one by a poet I admire, Joan McBreen.

Loss

Loss is a handkerchief on blackthorn touched with frost,
the imprint of your feet on sands you have crossed.

Loss is many stations where you waved in the rain,
the spring and summer you will not see again.

Loss is the mother calling the boy who does not reply,
is forked lightning in a summer sky.

Loss is the last page of each book loved,
is in the bedroom curtains that have not moved.

Loss is the black gabardine never returned,
it has no colour – that too is learned.

Loss is a silence you cannot forget,
is tobacco smoke recalled in the lilac garden where we met.


Joan McBreen


David Gray's new CD came out yesterday which is very exciting!   It has a lovely title -  ‘Foundling’ which reminds me I am meant to be visiting the Foundling Museum in London soon.  Would you like to hear the new single from the album?  A Moment Changes Everything - how true that can be.

Bye for now,
Cait

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Dear Diary,

I have just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, our book group’s choice for September which was picked by two of our members,  I had never got round to trying it - it was always out (!) and I was getting mixed reports from borrowers who returned the book to the library (but they were mostly very positive).

Before I picked up the Tattoo I had just finished Joseph O'Connor's Ghostlight (and I want to slip in a quick but huge recommendation for this one as his writing is just superb) but the Larsson book couldn't be more different, genre-wise.

I don’t usually go for crime fiction,  mysteries, thrillers, violence or very ‘explicit’ material and would normally avoid them like the plague. This book was all of those but much, much more and it would be fair to say that I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It took a little while to get into as I struggled a bit with its ‘Swedishness’ but I persevered (I had to) and once I was in I was well and truly hooked.   It gripped me so much that whenever I had to put it down I couldn’t wait to get back to it.  The author must have had an amazing gift for writing this sort of book, he certainly had the experience and the knowledge of the world he wrote about.   I won’t give much away in case you haven’t read it but I will say that it is tragic that Stieg Larsson died so suddenly just after handing the three books in to his publisher.  He wrote about the dark side of Swedish life and although he and his partner were said to be receiving constant death threats from extreme racist and far right-wing groups, it appears to be generally accepted that he died of a heart attack after climbing very many stairs (the lift was out of order) to hand in his finished books.

Dragon Tattoo is the first in a trilogy, namely the Millennium Trilogy and the next two titles are The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest but you really can read the first as a ‘stand-alone’ title as it ends ‘properly’ with only the characters carrying on into the next books.  I have been told by some people that the first one is not the best so I am really looking forward to numbers 2 & 3 and also to seeing the films.   Dragon Tattoo is out on DVD (I have ordered it from the library) and I believe the second is to be released in cinemas soon.

That’s all for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

PS What are you reading?

Beginnings

I am Eve your mother and I am evolution.
Set a seed in me or about me and it will grow
with just pure belief and hardly any effort
conception can occur.
In your beginnings was a word
and for me the word was pain.
Beginnings can be slow and hesitant,
there is always a weakness born of fragility
and though your own true origins
for decades were withheld from you,
I have to say you come from fertile stock.
Baby seedlings sprout
and so quickly
plants become giants,
for they are our familiars.

Whatever they may be,
seeds of change
seeds of knowledge
or even the seeds of your dreams,
each journey began with me.

In this, your human race.
you think you have striven to learn,
progress, improve, make sense of things;

(Who are you kidding?
can you count the ways you’ve grown?).

for where lies the harvest of your fruitfulness
from my own fecundity?

In essence, do you learn from any of your soul's beginnings?

I think not.

And there’s the pity of it

Cait O’Connor

92

Top of the Hill

Henry, Grace

c.1920

Grace Henry (1868-1953) was born Emily Grace Mitchell in Aberdeen . She studied in Brussels and Paris , where she met the Irish painter, Paul Henry. They married in London in 1903, and after some years in England, moved to Achill Island in 1912. 

Grace Henry’s Top of the Hill, injected with reds and yellows, demonstrates a different interpretation to Paul Henry’s depictions of Achill life. In contrast to The Old Woman, the women in this painting appear less burdened. For a few moments, business is suspended as they enjoy the happy coincidence that finds all three assembled on the top of the hill at the same time – a chance to gossip in peace.

Dear Diary,

 How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? 

Satchel Paige

There is no such thing as a coincidence, only synchronicity.  So I will start with a new discovery, hot off the press, only just unearthed (thank you dear Internet).  I had intended to put up a pic of Paul Henry's The Old Woman. I never knew Paul Henry's wife Grace was also a painter.  Can you see the similarity in style?  I am excited by this and shall be off later to seek out more such delights as the one above.  Ironically the subject is women gossiping and my post today is on a similar theme.  Not exactly gossiping but definitely three women and a man having a middle of the night chat,

I woke to a bit of a grey day and have to keep telling myself it is only August.  Still it isn’t raining so I may be able to potter in the garden this afternoon.  There is not enough colour there though, never is at this time of year so I may call at a garden centre this week to pick up some autumny flowering specimens - I was getting a few ideas in the Guardian at the weekend.

I have a poem-in-progress which I am going to post today purely to tell you how it came about.  Most poems I write just develop from a line, a word, a seed of an idea or they come to me from who knows where.  This one developed/is developing from a four-way online conversation in the wee small hours recently when I was suffering a bout of insomnia.  The chat was between two people in the UK (one was me obviously) and two in the USA.  I am in a social networking site - I hate that phrase, much prefer group of like-minded friends and no it is not Facebook,  Facebook and I don’t really gel, I don’t know why.

I digress.

We were discussing a 92 year old woman known to the other UK person, I won’t go into details as it is private stuff but it got me thinking and  a dear online friend in the USA used a word which also got me thinking. I returned to bed after an hour of chatting and sipping blueberry tea to relax me - both worked and I was soon asleep.  The next morning, while still in bed I wrote a draft of a poem.

Ninety-two


A child again, in plaits again,
her ringlet-curls have turned to silver-white.
She’s ninety-two and nearly blind of eye,
can hardly see to read or even write.
But she has seen so many  moons
and ridden far too many storms
but settled now with much-loved cat,
a crossword, cocoa and a comfy chair
still nurtures poems in her mind.
She eats and drinks too little, sleeps a lot,
her life has reached the winter Sunday time.
Now everything is fading day by day:
her body’s clock, her strength, her sight, her memory,
her hearing and her hope sometimes
but never does her love or strength of will.
Not done it all but seen it all
she’s fairly snug and safe and (mostly) free of pain.
The hearth contains her world now and the fire her memories,
a wealth therein of earthly dreams, some lost and unfulfilled
but only precious joyous ones are dancing in its flames.
Though many friends have passed her by, gone on ahead,
she sees no sense in being sad or drifting in their wake
but wonders far too often which season’s solstice is to be her very last.
Along with recollections of her past and thoughts of future family,
she feels within her own dried-up and long-forgotten womb
the sudden quickening of death, a line break in a life,
But she is poised, rehearsed and well-prepared for casting-off;
she knows that death, like birth, is just one process leading to the next.
Eternity is beckoning and here is just a stopping-place along the way.

.
Cait O’Connor

That’s all for now,
Life beckons,
Cait

PS How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

Song for a Sunday

 Mrs McGrath.

Just a song for a Sunday from the excellent Bob Springsteen Seeger Sessions, an uplifting CD if ever there was one. Play it if ever that black dog creeps in and he will soon be banished.  Not this one though, it is an anti-war song and they never disappear, I wish wars would though.


Mrs. McGrath," the sergeant said,
"Would you like a soldier
of your son, Ted?
With a scarlet cloak and a fine cocked hat,
Mrs. McGrath wouldn't you like that?"

Mrs. McGrath lived on the shore
And after seven years or more
she spied a ship come into the bay
with her son from far away

"Oh, Captain dear, where have you been.
Have you been out sailin' on the Mediteren'.
Have you any news of my son Ted.
Is he livin' or is he dead?"

Now came Ted without any legs
And in their place two wooden pegs
She kissed him a dozen times or two
Saying "My God Ted is it you?"

"Now were you drunk or were you blind
When you left your two fine legs behind?
Or was it walking upon the sea
That wore your two fine legs away?"

"No I wasn't drunk and I wasn't blind
When I left my two fine legs behind.
a cannon ball on the fifth of May
Tore my two fine legs away."

"Now Teddy boy," the widow cried
"Your two fine legs was your mother's pride
Them stumps of a tree won't do at all
Why didn't you run from the cannon ball?"

All foreign wars, I do proclaim
Live on blood and a mother's pain
I'd rather have my son as he used to be
than the king of America and his whole navy

Calling Writers

My local writing group, the Irfon Valley Writers are running a creative writing competition which will be judged by the well known poet Ruth Bidgood. 

We are trying to raise funds for promotion of the arts for the children and young people in our area so please have a go and submit an entry if you can, it doesn't cost much to enter for adults and is free for under 16's.

The subject is one close to everybody's heart - it is 'Home' and is in line with this year's National Poetry Day theme.  Entries can be in short story form or a poem.

Details about how to enter and  the rules are on the right of this post.

I do hope you will have a go, there are so many excellent writers out there!.

 Good luck!

Cait.

Artist - Liz Ryan

Colours

In honour and in memory of such a treasured art,
I try my hand, I paint in oils, I sketch in pastels’ harmonies,.
I bathe in abstract colour-blocks, I swim in primaries,
I make escape in water-coloured dreams.

The pictures of my life show many hues.
My Irish blood is always rustic red,
my melancholy Celtic soul is muted blue,
the green folk, those who dwell amongst my kin
are strongly balanced, simply steadfast, made secure,
so all who dance among their calming verdancy
will feel at home, serene and sure.

There have to be some yellows, just to please
as, tinged with joyfulness, they dazzle;
and browns so warm they're silky smooth like chocolate
but sometimes turn the darkest grey,
like sludge, become immutable.

Angelic children bring a lightness in their wake,
they shine with brightness, energy and verve.
I paint them rainbowed, decked with crystals, indigoed,
for only they can lift my spirits high enough to fly
upon their favoured guardian angels’ wings.

They take me to a special place where I can find
that poet’s Irish peace which comes and drops so slow
and soothes the feeble, hopeless efforts
of a would-be artist’s, wild, enchanted heart.


Cait O’Connor

Mini Monet

Dear Diary,

Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.

Claude Monet

I wish I was artistic, I can't even draw stick men properly.  I appreciate all things arty but have no ability in that direction, I often look at my favourites, the Irish artist Paul Henry's paintings and try to imagine how he has created the clouds for example and think I may have a go one day.  I am often tempted to try abstract paintings in blocks of colour as sometimes I feel the need - perhaps I am in need of the qualities of particular colours in my life at certain times.  I do believe in colour therapy, I always wear red shoes, it's an energy thing!

I love impressionist paintings and I have to thank a fellow blogger, Bouddica for introducing me to the boy they are calling Britian’s Mini Monet.

 Kieron Williamson is just seven years old and here are some examples of his work.  When I first saw them all I could say was ‘Wow’.  They are amazing in the true sense of the word because they have been created by a child but they would be outstanding even if an adult had painted them.  Kieron lives in Norfolk which is a part of the UK that has influenced many painters, perhaps it is something to do with the vast skies and the quality of the light there.  But Kieron has surely been born with a precious gift.

This is the young lad's website:

http://kieronwilliamson.com


If you were a colour, what would you be?

That's all,
Bye for now,
Cait

Where are you poem?

Dear Diary

I so want to write a poem. I looked hard to find the poem deep inside but I found nothing but jumble; something needs to be born but is not yet conceived.   I am too much of me and of our fast failing world with all its frantic whirring.  My list of things to do today is frozen on my brain which is like a computer screen that just won’t clear.  Where are you poem?  I know you are there somewhere deep; hiding, crouching low but with your words bound tight like a plant neatly entwined, severely choked by bindweed, a flower so delicate looking but deceptively murderous in its habit.

Last night at midnight I sat upon the window’s seat in my bedroom, the still-close-to-full moon was shining across the river - it was so bright that I had taken it for a light glowing somewhere.  I was hypnotised; I should be used to it by now and even though this time there was no life to be seen moving in the water, only the waves and ripples of the mountain’s stream which glinted and danced as they flowed over the stones, I was still entranced.   I should really have gone out into the garden but was already in my pyjamas.
No excuse that as I do actually own a dressing gown. I should have taken my camera out (note to self - never put off what must be done until tomorrow, only ever put off what can be put off).

I’ll leave you with a poem anyway, one so good that I wish I had written it!  It's  a translation from the Welsh and is still amazing .  I  attended one of her workshops once and happen to know  that she is a Welsh speaker and one of Wales’ top poets.   I hope you like the poem too.

I hope you liked American Tune in my previous post.  In my next post I will tell you why I posted it.

Anyway here is Coupling, a poem about love.


Coupling



Life is a house in ruins. And we mean to fix it up
and make it snug. With our hands we knock it into shape
to the very top. Till beneath this we fasten a roofbeam
that will watch the coming and going of our skyless life,
two crooked segments. They are fitted together,
timbers in concord. Smooth beams, and wide.
Two in touch. That's the craft we nurture in folding
doubled flesh on a frame. Conjoining the smooth couplings
that sometimes arch into one. Aslant above a cold world,
hollow wood wafting passion. Then stock still for a time.
And how clear cut the roof, creaking love at times,
as it chides the worm to keep off and await its turn.

Menna Elfyn

English translation by Joseph Clancy

Bye for now,
Cait

American Tune

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was crying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest



Paul Simon

Full Moon

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Buddha

The Moon


The moon was but a chin of gold
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.
Her forehead is of amplest blond;
Her cheek like beryl stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.
Her lips of amber never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will!
And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.
Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities of blue.


Emily Dickinson

Libraries, books, oh and there's a fairy.

There really are fairies in my garden, here is one I caught on camera.

Dear Diary,

I am writing today about books and so of course our  libraries will get a mention..

Libraries will get you through times of NO money better than money will get you through times of NO Libraries
Anne Herbert.

CUTS to Libraries during a recession are just like CUTS to hospitals during a plague!

Eleanor Crumblehulme

The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a Library card. 

E. L. Doctorow.

A Library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people.  

It is a never failing spring in the desert.  

Andrew Carnegie

The public Library is the only public agency which serves the minds of ALL of the population, one individual at a time

Unknown. 

We are the only planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes or our brains. The warehouse of that memory is called a Library.

Carl Sagan

More than a building that houses books and data, the Library has always been a window to a larger world–a place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward. . . . . Libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we’re the most religious of people, America’s innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts. And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a Library, we’ve changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.

Barack Obamac

I am meant to be away with the fairies today getting on with the gardening but the sun is not out, the ground is very wet and well to be honest I am feeling a trifle lazy so instead I am contemplating a rest on my bed with a Good Book. I have several which you can see if you check out the Books on My Bedside Table list in the right-hand column of this page. I have recently started the Patrick Harpur 'Soul' one which is a gem of a book, please don't be put off by the title or the sound of it, it's not your usual run of the mill New Agey type book, it is so well written and informative and I can't wait to to read more.

I am also enjoying Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, that's a real page-turner but I expect you have all read it years ago. I don't know how I missed actually reading it a few years back, a friend has just recommended it to me and I am so glad that he did.

Joseph O'Connor has a new novel out, I just can't wait for that. what a great writer and story teller he is (see my books on order list on right).

Simon Armitage has a new volume of poetry out, I heard him reading some of them on Radio 4 and I am very eager to get my hands on the book.

Trespass by that great writer Rose Tremain is another book thatI am longing to read, it's set in the South of France.

Philip Pullman's new one is said to be very controversial so I must read that. I will report back on all these but do remind me.

I have been listening to Jackie Kay reading her new book, Red Dust Road which is an 'adoption memoir' as they love to call these books. I am working on my own so was very keen to hear her story. She is a great poet and I have already read her poem 'The Adoption Papers'. The memoir is a great read and she read it beautifully this week on Radio 4's Book of the Week(it ended today but you can Listen Again).

I know I am biaised but aren't libraries wonderful? I pray that not one library is closed in the soon to be announced cuts in our public services, it would be a crime against society in my opinion.

If you have bored children take them to the library and join Space Hop, the Summer Reading Game.

What's on your bedside table?

I am off to see my cranial osteopath this afternoon, I can't wait.... even though I don't know how it works - her ways are ways of magic - but she usually puts me to right for a very long time and I am hoping to be free of headaches for a very long while.

And don't forget....

Whatever the cost of our Libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.
Walter Cronkite

Happy Reading,

Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

Gardens and Blogs

Grandmother's Garden by June Dudley


And when thou art weary, I'll find thee a bed of mosses
and flowers to pillow thy head...
John Keats

Dear Diary,

 

Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.  Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I had a wasted weekend;  Saturday I had an horrendous migraine and had to come home from work; Sunday I had the migraine ‘hangover’ which any fellow sufferer will identify with, that feeling of utter weakness and slight shakiness.

Yesterday morning I was determined to play catch-up and in spite of still feeling a bit on the weak side I donned my gardening togs and spent a very happy couple of hours in the garden - just pottering really, which is one of my favourite pastimes, indoors or out, (please excuse the garden pun there). I also did quite a bit of the never-ending chore that is weeding.  It was very warm yesterday, today it is still very warm but we have had rain - constant rain - that started off so very lightly this morning and now, this evening, is falling heavily. I hope we are not going to have the same weather  we had last year when it rained throughout July and August.  As I am typing this I am watching the river which has taken on a lightish brown tinge and is rising quite quickly.  I pray it won’t flood….

A garden is a bit like a blog, it needs attention every day and much pleasure is gained if you receive positive comments about its appearance or its content.  Both require constancy (I love that word so had to slip it in), hard work, imagination and both benefit from new ideas.  Both require the weeding out of the unnecessary, the unintended or the unattractive.  Both mature with time, they may change direction, stop and start, have growth spurts, parts may die or disappear.  With any luck blossoming occurs.

We like to visit other people’s gardens and a lot of us also visit other folk’s blogs. We may have favourites; many are beautifully designed, are highly original or quirky, we are often moved to make comments, we get ideas, we learn such a lot and we are often inspired.  We may or may not stick to the rules of grammar or the rules of horticulture but we respond to our own moods, to those of the weather or the season, all can affect our practice.  Both can bring rewards; a feeling of satisfaction and achievement and sometimes even a healing of some kind.  Just as writing can be a therapy for the soul so can spending time outdoors in nature working  with the soil and with plants.

Of course both are creative pursuits and seeds are sown which with due care should bring fruit.  However I suppose the difference is that if I gave up tending my garden it would very soon take on a life of its own but with Mother Nature as ever the one in charge but if I gave up posting here my blog would rapidly fade away into obscurity. ……

 

But I’m not planning to do give up either just yet.

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait

Before the famine

Before the famine

On the western tip of Europe
reaching out to Dingle Bay,
a cottage sits, thatched, gilded and always lit up
by the influence of God, or by rainbows
from the mountain rains and the sometimes sun.
Did I dream you into being?
Lying overgrown and ripe, in need of care,
your mellow garden is steeped in wild flowers
while turf is stacked against your stony walls.
Through a wooden door of oxblood red
you welcome me quietly into chiaoscuro light.
Ancestral memories have always sung to me
of your whitewashed walls and your truckle bed.
Now I yearn to sleep there by the glow of oil lamps
in the little alcove beside your hearth.
There, upon your paved floors of slate, lasting and true,
are patchworks and flowers,
a scented geranium in a metal pail.
A crucifix hangs upon a wall,
a rosary by its side.
A meal has been laid on the table:
there are foods that are staple:
potatoes, bread, butter in churns
and the purest honey from the hive.
Cait O’Connor

Painting by James Anderson

Snapshots

There is Another Sky

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come! 

Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Think of me on Sundays

This poem is inspired by a meme on
Yolanda's Perfectly Imperfect blog.



Think of me on Sundays.


Think of me on Sundays…

For if I were a day I’d like to be a Sunday; quiet and reflective.
If I were a time it would be night with my hours full of moonlight and wonder.
If I were a planet it would surely be the one that’s lost,
just out of reach, still waiting, borne on imagination.
If I were a direction it would have to be west for it is my spirit’s home,
to where I am drawn, from whence I came.
If I were a piece of furniture I’d love to be the bentwood rocker
on your sweet New England porch.
To calm you down I’d rock and soothe you off to sleep;
you’d be forever cradled in my arms of polished wood.
If I were liquid I’d be pure water in your streams or in sea water’s waves
or in cascades that play God’s music in their waterfalls.
If I were precious I would not be gold but would dress always in amethyst
encased in silver so I could lie at all times near your heart.
If I were a flower I’d want be the wildest rose, persistent, understated, seldom found.
If I were weather I would be in Ireland’s rain
so my drops would be gentle, soft and warm.
If I were an instrument I’d be uilleann pipes;
you’d hear me and I’d touch you somewhere deep within,
If I were a colour I’d have to steal the blue of summer skies
and be unapologetic in my crime.
If I were an emotion I’d strive hard to be thoughtful, always deep but wholly kind.
If I were a sound you’d hear me in the waves on oceanic crossings.
If I were an element I would strive to dance within the fire
that lights the blessing candle in your home.
If I were a place I’d be an island, small and safe, protected,
a haven for the poor lost souls and rescued beasts of burden on this Earth.
If I were textile I’d be the softest silk in pastels
or cotton paisley in bright colours, depending on your mood.
If I were a song it would always be the rebel’s tune
played loud and always shouting for a cause.
If I were a city I’d be Dublin, I’d feel at home there
and would sincerely hope you’d stay.
I’d be the doorway in a photo, a piece of history or art.
But if I were a gift for you I’d like to be a book,
one of wild, unruly poems, unstructured, wrapped with care, 
something to treasure all your days.
I’d hope you’d bring it out on Sundays .

Think of me on Sundays…


Cait O’Connor

A Nice Song

The Joys of Gardening

Dear Diary,

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.  My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.  The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.

Abram L Urban

My garden is not huge but it wraps itself around the cottage and there is more than enough for me to cope with, I am so lucky to have the mountain stream flowing through it and the beautiful views. I have taken photos before for the blog but I shall try to take some more this week.

The growing season is short in this upland area of Wales and certain plants just will not grow and those that do are way behind those at lower altitudes.  You soon learn what keels over at this altitude in this acid soil and what thrives I am a bit of a fair weather gardener which probably explains why I am writing today about the joys of gardening. We have had so many weeks of real summer for a change. 

Shall I list these joys?  There are many.

To start with working with the soil ‘earths’ me which does me the world of good as I live too much in my head most of the time.  I love the feel of earth in my hands and the smell of it too.  Although I have to wear gardening gloves there are some jobs that I just can’t do properly with gloves on.  Transplanting seedlings for example, or potting on. 

There is the solitude too which I just have to have at times and I enjoy my own company very much but I am not always completely alone, I am joined sometimes by M who helps out with certain tasks.  I am accompanied at times by a dog or two or a cat and always surrounded by birds; some watch from a distance, some are braver like the robins and the blackbirds who watch patiently in case some tasty morsel is turned over and laid out at their feet,  (Do birds have feet?).  I am watched by squirrels and sometimes spied on by birds of prey like the red kites who swoop above me.  There are more bees this year which is good news and always butterflies around me.  Sometimes there are sheep in the field across the river and they will stand and watch my movements from afar. I wonder what they are thinking.  Perhaps they wonder what I am thinking,

Tending a garden is similar to the practice of meditation because I concentrate fully on the task in hand and become totally absorbed within it.  I am happy and purposeful and the garden seems to be the only place where I can put aside, if only for a while, any worries that I may have.  It is rewarding when a job is done, a ‘corner’ or a bed sorted and improved, an area cleared of weeds brings much satisfaction and reward for much hard work.  And it is ongoing as plants GROW (usually).  Weeds GROW too but I have learned to enjoy, well perhaps enjoy is not the right word; endure perhaps, the chore that is weeding.  My thoughts wander and I often find inspiration while I am doing it.

Gardening is physically exhausting sometimes and I have to limit myself in case I overdo things but at least it beats going to a gym and it is so lovely to be out in the pure fresh Welsh mountain air. The best advice I can give is to take it in small doses and set a time limit - stop when you are still wanting more and then there is the next day to look forward to.  A bit like writing I guess.

Yesterday I gardened in soft rainfall - West Cork weather I call it  - which suits me well.  It was warm but with the softest of rain, real Irish weather, rain that started off more like a mist but soon became the sort that quickly makes you wet through without you realising.  But for me it beat the sweltering heat any day, I was so happy.

Gardening presents challenges which for me, being an Aries, I relish.  However, being an Aries my enthusiasm is apt to wane before the job is finished.  I must try harder….  It is an inexpensive hobby if I restrict myself when I go to garden centres (very hard) and if I wanted to I could grow a lot of my own food…perhaps one day.

Just lately I have begun to see the garden as somewhere I can be creative rather than just somewhere to sweep, cut back, weed and tidy. This is quite exciting.  Just recently our phone line was down and I could not go on the net for a week - I turned to the garden as the weather was so inviting.  I realised that my life had become out of balance because I was spending too much time indoors looking at a computer screen, both at work and at home. I have had a few days off work and am just starting to feel rested.  Pottering is one of my passions and I have been concentrating on practising this one a lot.

Well I must sign off now.  The garden is quite tidy but the cottage needs a clean.  Not today though, I am not in housework mode (or cooking!). Maybe it will rain soon.  I found this quote recently, it is so true.

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.  ~Author Unknown

I must leave you with a poem. 

My dear cat Molly roams among the roses  - she’s not black but is pure white -  but I still loved the poem by Amy Lowell. I hope you like it too.


A Black Cat Among Roses

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snowball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone.

Amy Lowell

Bye for now,
Happy Gardening,
Cait.












   

 Dear Diary,


Well it has been a long time since my last posting. I have missed you all but I've had a little holiday from work and from blogging and have been spending hours battling with weeds, trying to tame my unruly garden.  I hate pulling up weeds as they are after all just living plants that are unwanted and have landed up in the wrong place.  But I have been resolute and cast out any guilt feelings.  

And hasn't the weather been heavenly?  In between pulling up weeds I've been enjoying watching Wimbledon, it's always a treat for me to sit down and watch the tennis at this time of year.  (No Safin to drool over this year but never mind).   And I've been enjoying the World Cup too, I really love to watch good football, I always have done and while I was growing up I was a Crystal Palace supporter.  I'll say no more about England's performance in the World Cup though, it's really best forgotten.

I watched two good films this week - Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep. such a good one, especially if you love cooking and it's based on a book which was originally a blog. (a true story). The other one was The Queen with Helen Mirren.  Neither films are new but I hadn't got round to seeing either.


I  will sign off with a poem, something that just came into my head. 



Positive Thoughts


The trouble with you is you are always buried
deep beneath the negatives. Shall I list them? 
Can you spare me that much of your precious time?
I thought not and in any case upon them
you and I should never wish to dwell.
You lie so deep sometimes, submerged and overwhelmed
and guarding you, on high alert and always dressed to kill,
the thought police are on permanent patrol.

I must never give up the search for you
for positives parade in many ways,
are found in truth in all our days.
Sometimes the human heroes we encounter on our daily round
are truly saints or angels in our lives.
We almost disregard them as we heed our demons’  daily noise,
ignoring at our peril all the value in a loving, kindly face,
a baby’s smile, a laugh, a hope, a rush of love,
a real belief, some words of comfort and a strength of will,
an angel’s intervention in our life.

And unbeknown to us, amidst the graveyards in our minds
we give unholy funerals to them all
when we should seek their daily resurrection
and speak, for all to hear of good news, in a mantra
or some well-worn, bright, but long-forgotten silent prayer.

Cait O’Connor

Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait.

The Palm Reading

I crept in with sunken palms
chasms of no confidence,
a fortune in my hands for all to see,
a map of lines which I had carried lifelong, hidden,
with an eager, sometimes far too trusting, sympathetic heart.

She swept in on an air of frankincense and cedar
under an aura of rainbows, all sparkled silver and old gold.
Her tourmaline ring hung on red- ribboned silk
for she dowsed and read the tea leaves,
clouds and water, mirrors and a crystal ball.
She even saw weird shapes in dripping, melting wax.
All yielded secrets to her as she scryed.

She said I had a Water hand,
(intuitive and compassionate,
artistic and emotional, but seriously gullible
and far too unworldly for this tainted planet Earth).
My heart line was deeply curvy
(I liked the sound of that)
but I was without any minor lines.
(Well none to speak of).
No crosses or triangles, no sign of little squares.
But then she found the writer’s fork, (quite rare)
which showed a poet's soul
(kind and true with sensitivity).

On my return home, still elated, I created in her name
a bouquet of words, as we poets often love to do.
She knew the lore of flowers, threw runes,
read faces and the Tarot,
always kept her Angel cards at hand.
And when we’d bidden our farewells
and I’d looked deep into her kindly eyes of green
I had no doubt that I  had left with her the secrets
of my very special ‘poet’s life’ of dreams.


Cait O’Connor 2010

Your Song

I have given up on 'X' and 'Z' too so this will be the finale.
I have been looking forward to this one. It takes me back quite a long way but I still remember when I heard it, discovered Elton John and bought his first album.

I am a big fan of Bernie Taupin's lyrics.

Your Song

It's a little bit funny this feeling inside
I'm not one of those who can easily hide
I don't have much money but boy if I did
I'd buy a big house where we both could live

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show
I know it's not much but it's the best I can do
My gift is my song and this one's for you

And you can tell everybody this is your song
It may be quite simple but now that it's done
I hope you don't mind
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you're in the world

 

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss
Well a few of the verses well they've got me quite cross
But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song
It's for people like you that keep it turned on

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen

Alphabet of Songs 'W'

Dear Diary,

We must be the change we want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948

Nearly finished the alphabet!

'W' has been a delight to search for as I have found so many gems.

Too many and so very hard to choose a favourite.

Songs like:

While my guitar gently weeps by dear George Harrison, God rest his soul.

Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush - the first song I heard after giving birth to my daughter and loving it instantly.

Wind beneath my Wings.

Waiting for a Girl like you.

White Flag by Dido.

White Ladder by David Gray.

When you Love Someone.

So hard to choose just one but in the end I chose this one not only for its music but also for its message of hope for the children of our world.

Wind of Change by the Scorpions

And finally just for Frances and just for fun and just because it is such a good one.



I might have to give up on 'X' unless anyone can help me out here?

Can't wait to do 'Y'.

See you soon,
Cait.

For Vincent

'V' wasn't so hard after all. This just happens to be one of my all-time favourites with beautiful lyrics too and Vincent is the name of my late brother, the one I never got to meet, I missed him by a matter of days, God rest his soul.. Why on earth did I think that this letter of the alphabet would be a challenge?

'W' should be a breeze (hold on Frances) and I can't wait to post 'Y'. 'X' will be hard as will 'Z'. But then I shall be back to more 'normal' blogging, I am quite looking forward to that but I hope you have been enjoying the music, I know I have found it fun searching.

In today's choice I hope you enjoy not just the music but the delicious works of art too.


Vincent

Starry
starry night
paint your palette blue and grey

look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the
darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils

catch the breeze and the winter chills

in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how

perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry
starry night
flaming flowers that brightly blaze

swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.
Colors changing hue
morning fields of amber grain

weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's
loving hand.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
but still your love was true

and when no hope was left in sight on that starry
starry night.
You took your life
as lovers often do;
But I could have told you
Vincent
this world was never
meant for one
as beautiful as you.

Starry
starry night
portraits hung in empty halls

frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes
that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met

the ragged men in ragged clothes

the silver thorn of bloody rose
lie crushed and broken
on the virgin snow.
And now I think I know what you tried to say to me

how you suffered for your sanity

how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not
list'ning still
perhaps they never will.


Don McLean

The Moor

I just had to share this lovely poem with you as well as post my 'U' song.  I hope you enjoy both.

Next it is 'V's turn..... may this be a problem I wonder?

First the poem by a fine Welsh poet.


The Moor

 

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart's passions -- that was praise
Enough; and the mind's cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

R S Thomas 1913-2000

 

And now for something completely different.

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Dear Frances of City Views and Country Dreams fame must be on my musical wavelength as she picked this one too. I found this version on YouTube which features more than just Roberta Flack and she still has a great voice, don't you agree?

It brought tears to my eyes.

Enjoy.